The Unhoneymooners Review

So, I finally got around to reading The Unhoneymooners, or rather any of Christina Lauren's romance novels and ooh boy, is this book a rollercoaster.

So this book is all about Olive, a curvy woman who believes she has the absolute worst luck, especially compared to her twin sister Ami who seems to have all the luck. Ami's meet-cute turned into her now-husband and their wedding and honeymoon are practically free through an assortment of giveaways. However, the entire wedding party ends up with terrible food poisoning except for Olive, who's allergic to shellfish, and Ethan, the best man who refuses to eat from a buffet, and a complete ass. Ami begs Olive to take her place on her all-expense paid honeymoon to Hawaii since they can't go. So Olive and Ethan must put their hatred for each other to the side for the sake of a free honeymoon.

Overall, I gave this book a 3.5 out of 5 stars because parts of it were cute and adorable, but some parts were... pretty bad. This has the enemies-to-lovers trope, which I love, plus you do get pretty good character development, but one of the main problems of the entire book was just miscommunication and it was, honestly really lame. I'm trying to not spoil too much but there were so many opportunities to have a much better problem than just two people not talking. Also, I'm not sure if all Christina Lauren books are like this, but there's not much smut at all, there's one sex scene, but it felt more like a fade to black than an explicit scene. NOW, the main nonspoiler problem with this book is the "fat representation." The main reason Olive hates Ethan because she thought that he looked at her with disgust while he was eating, fat-shaming her; however, it seemed like the only thing big or curvy about her was her breasts, which were almost constantly mentioned anytime her body size was mentioned, and honestly this pissed me off so much. If you were to ask me to give a physical description of Olive, I would not use the word curvy whatsoever. Also, this book is super quick reading, like I read the majority of it in a day and I don't know the last time I did that.

Now moving onto the spoiler-filled review. I am a sucker so how cheesy the ending was, it's a stereotypical romance, but it's extra cheesy. Like I'm a sucker for planned declarations of love, they're just the cutest. Moving on to my other major gripe with this book which was the "antagonist." I don't know if he's necessarily a true antagonist, but goddamn Dane (also I couldn't remember his name for the life of me so that kinda shows how little important he is) is just terrible and not just in his personality but in the sense of being a terrible antagonist. Like he kept his brother away from Olive because he was pretty much cheating on her sister and while I don't get cheating while dating, but what was the point of even marrying Ami, like their entire relationship made absolutely no sense to me. Then when Olive and Ethan make it back, after Olive told Ethan that it was weird that Dane claimed they weren't exclusive even though Olive was almost positive Ami didn't think they were, Dane makes a joke, in front of Ami and Ethan, about him and Ethan switching twins. Of course Ami and Ethan just laugh it off, but when Dane makes a legitimate move towards Olive, Ethan still brushes it off, and when she tells Ami, Ami very much embraces the female equivalent of "hoes before bros" and just assumes that Olive is so pessimistic to believe in love and that everyone needs to be as pessimistic as her. I mean you're gonna trust a guy you've been with for a few years over YOUR TWIN SISTER!? It was such a thin twist that just felt unbelievable. Honestly, they could have made Ethan's ex much more of an antagonist to the relationship, or even some throwaway guy/girl that one of them hit on the first night. You get so little information about Dane, other than he seems like a frat guy, that it just feels like a throwaway twist.

All in all, it's not bad, but it's not great. It's a simple read and pretty predictable, but don't expect anything new or thought-provoking.